Month: February 2023

The Grammys: They sure are long! Shout out to my fellow East Coasters who watched the 2023 Grammys until midnight yesterday and got 45 quality minutes of sleep before getting ready for work this morning.

Within all the length of last night’s show, a lot of things happened. Some awards went to their expected recipients, others went to nominees viewers probably forgot were even up for consideration. Some artists put on spectacular performances, others were certainly at least on stage performing music. Some people got their flowers, others would have settled for just a glimpse of a dried-out petal.

With the dust settling now, all of these events can be generally placed into three categories: winners, losers, and surprises. In fact, the highlights of these goings-on have been categorized thusly… by me… below.

Winner: Beyoncé

Beyoncé took a slight L when she got stuck in traffic and consequently showed up late to the Grammys. That was profoundly overshadowed, though, by one of the biggest moments of Bey’s career: Renaissance won the Grammy for Best Dance/Electronic Music Album. In a vacuum, that’s kind of neat, but zoom out: That Grammy was the 32nd of Beyoncé’s career, which is the new all-time Grammy record. The ever-composed Beyoncé was clearly emotional while accepting the award, which goes to show how major the win was not just in music history, but to her personally.

Surprise: Bonnie Raitt/Samara Joy

Beyoncé’s big win wasn’t a shock. You know what was, though? Half of the Grammys in the “big four” categories.

The Best New Artist field was strong and the winner ended up being Samara Joy, a jazz singer who’s a relative unknown when compared to competitors like Anitta, Latto, and Wet Leg.

Then came Song Of The Year.

Up for consideration were songs by Adele, Beyoncé, Bonnie Raitt, DJ Khaled, Gayle, Harry Styles, Kendrick Lamar, Lizzo, Steve Lacy, and Taylor Swift. Looking at that list, clearly, there’s one artist that stands out, and not favorably in terms of contemporary acclaim and pop culture relevance: Raitt. Just like that, though, “Just Like That” won.

Raitt is a legend and a Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee, but even she was left scratching her head: When her name was called, she gave an open-mouthed look around the room like she just won $100K on a gas station scratcher. That was a fair reaction: “Just Like That” currently has under half a million streams on Spotify. Last year, around 9.5 million people watched the Grammys. So, if those numbers remain similar for this year’s broadcast, that means about 20 times as many people watched “Just Like That” win the award than had actually heard the song before (and that’s being generous by assuming every Spotify listener has only played the song one time).

The Grammys aren’t supposed to be a popularity contest, but cultural relevance should have been a bigger consideration here.

Loser: In Memoriam segment

Every year, the Recording Academy honors esteemed deceased musicians with its In Memoriam portion of the show. Also every year, they find a way to piss people off. Fans were quick to notice that artists like Gangsta Boo and Aaron Carter weren’t mentioned during the broadcast, which rubbed some viewers the wrong way.

To the Recording Academy’s credit, in a post shared ahead of the show, they shared an In Memoriam list featuring more names than made it onto the broadcast, noting that “some” of them would be included in the video tribute. Carter was on that list, but not the broadcast. They also note that the people on the list all died between January 1, 2022 and December 6, 2022; Boo died on January 1, 2023.

So, the Recording Academy technically has some plausible deniability here, but maybe policies that exclude people who should obviously be named could use some reconsidering.

Winner: Wet Leg

Previously, leg was dry. At the Grammys, though, leg was wet: Emerging rock favorites Wet Leg was up for five awards and they took home two of them: Best Alternative Music Performance for “Chaise Longue” and Best Alternative Music Album for Wet Leg.

Winner: Harry Styles, studio musician

Harry was one of the evening’s most-nominated artist with seven total nods. He ended the night with a strong winning percentage, too, taking home three awards, most notably picking up Album Of The Year for Harry’s House. That said…

Loser: Harry Styles, live performer

…boy was his performance during the show dull and weird.

He started his rendition of “As It Was” with some backing dancers, all spinning slowly on a rotating platform, like the song’s music video. It was an extremely low-energy environment for a minute or so, all while the relentlessly upbeat song charged on in defiant tonal contrast. It looked as though Styles and company had the stage set up to perform an Adele ballad before switching to “As It Was” seconds before going on. Things didn’t really improve after the intro, either. Styles’ current tour has obviously gone well, as the banner he has hanging in Madison Square Garden indicates, but the watermelon sugar high appears to have worn off since his last arena show.

Winner: Viola Davis

Congratulations are in order for Viola Davis: She e-got her EGOT! She’s now one of only 18 people to ever do it and it’s thanks in part to last night’s win in the Best Audio Book, Narration, And Storytelling Recording category, for her Finding Me memoir.

Winner: Kendrick Lamar

Beyoncé was the evening’s leading nominee with nine total nods, but Lamar was right behind her with eight of his own. Despite getting shut out of the main categories, Lamar did well in the hip-hop categories, winning in Best Rap Performance (“The Heart Part 5”), Best Rap Song (“The Heart Part 5”), and Best Rap Album (Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers). Furthermore, he did it all while dressed like Goodwill Kid, M.A.A.D. City.

Surprise: Muni Long

In the Best R&B Song category, Beyoncé came out on top with “Cuff It.” Another Renaissance track, “Virgo’s Groove,” was up for Best R&B Performance, and while that may have felt like an obvious pick there, Muni Long actually pulled off the upset with “Hrs & Hrs.”

That’s not to say, of course, that Long’s win (her first Grammy victory) is inexcusable. “Hrs & Hrs” is an accomplished track, as it was only the second song by an independent artist to top the Billboard Hot R&B Songs chart, it’s certified platinum, and it achieved a No. 16 peak on the Hot 100. Beating Beyoncé for a Grammy is a tall mountain to scale, so congrats to Long!

Winner: 50th Anniversary Of Hip-Hop Tribute Performance

The Recording Academy put a major focus on honoring hip-hop in 2023, since this year marks the half-century anniversary of the genre’s inception. They went all out with a gargantuan 10-minute performance that spanned eras, featuring stage time from Grandmaster Flash, Rakim, RUN-DMC, Salt-N-Pepa, Future, GloRilla, Lil Baby, Busta Rhymes, De La Soul, Missy Elliott, Method Man, Nelly, and Too Short, among others. If you’re looking for a hip-hop history lesson, the setlist is a terrific starting point.

Surprise: Brandi Carlile

To her name, Brandi Carlile has racked up 24 Grammy nominations in her lifetime. She’s usually firmly in the Americana and country categories, but this year, she earned her first rock nominations. She actually dominated on that front, with “Broken Horses” winning Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance. While on the surface, Carlile getting rock Grammys might read as off, she performed the track during the broadcast and it was very clearly a rock song, and a pretty good one, too.

Loser: “God Did”

Last night, a lot of songs did, but “God Did” was not among them. The DJ Khaled, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, John Legend, and Fridayy song was nominated for Song Of The Year, Best Rap Performance, and Best Rap Song. It won none of those awards.

Then, Khaled and company had to close the show with a performance of the song, which featured Khaled spouting his classic substance-free motivational nuggets. His loud claims of “we the best” or whatever while actual musicians were performing around him fell especially flat, since the Recording Academy just finished declaring on national television that he is in fact not the best.

Loser: Benny Blanco

Benny Blanco wore that to the 2023 Grammy Awards.

Find the full list of this year’s Grammy nominees and winners here.

The 2023 Grammys, like all Grammys past, paused the proceedings for an In Memoriam tribute. Kacey Musgraves sang “Coal Miner’s Daughter” by the late Loretta Lynn. Bonnie Raitt, Mick Fleetwood, and Sheryl Crow performed “Songbird” for the late Christine McVie. Quavo even took the stage to perform “Without Out,” his heartbreaking single honoring Takeoff, his

Some viewers were upset that the likes of Aaron Carter and Gangsta Boo were noticeably missing from the segment, and others wondered why Taylor Hawkins, the late Foo Fighters drummer, wasn’t mentioned.

We can’t defend the omissions of Carter and Gangsta Boo, but there is a reasonable explanation for Hawkins, who died suddenly last March.

The 2022 Grammys aired on April 3, 2022 — roughly one week after Hawkins’ passing — so Hawkins was honored during last year’s ceremony.

Foo Fighters had been scheduled to perform at the 2022 Grammys but understandably canceled all their upcoming performances to grieve Hawkins. Instead, host Trevor Noah used the time to introduce a video tribute to Hawkins.

Additionally, Billie Eilish wore a shirt with a photo of Hawkins on it during her performance of “Happier Than Ever.” Foo Fighters won three Grammys last year: Best Rock Album (Medicine At Midnight), Best Rock Song (“Waiting On A War”), and Best Rock Performance (“Making A Fire”).

In December, Foo Fighters confirmed their plans to move forward as a band without Hawkins

It’s Super Bowl week! With the Eagles set to take on the Chiefs this Sunday in Arizona, there is a lot of excitement and anticipation about a matchup between the top seeds in each conference this year. Will Patrick Mahomes capture his second Super Bowl ring? Will Jalen Hurts establish himself as the next NFL superstar? Can Andy Reid become the winningest coach of two separate NFL franchises? These are just a few of the many questions and narratives being discussed throughout the week.

There are going to be a lot of predictions as always, but there is one prediction that is always fun look forward to — the yearly Madden simulation. Every year, Madden makes it own prediction on who is going to come out on top in that year’s upcoming Super Bowl and early Monday EA Sports revealed the results of this year’s official Madden sim.

It was the Eagles pulling away and ultimately cruising to victory over the Chiefs. It’s unclear if the game was able to take Patrick Mahomes ankle into consideration, but Madden 23 has the Chiefs only scoring once in the second half while the virtual Eagles put up three touchdowns after being tied at halftime. The Chiefs managed to keep it within a touchdown entering the fourth quarter, but a Miles Sanders touchdown at the goal line sealed Kansas City’s fate and delivered Philadelphia its second super bowl in five years.

Will the Madden prediction come true? While it is certainly possible, it’s hard to believe that Patrick Mahomes is going to be held to only a single TD pass all game, especially if he’s playing from behind the entire second half. That said, the Eagles’ pass rush could definitely cause issues for Mahomes and Philadelphia’s offense will certainly look to run the ball and keep him off the field. If that does happen, Jalen Hurts tossing two TDs and running one in himself would definitely be enough to put Philadelphia on top for a second Super Bowl win in five yars.

Kim Petras and Sam Smith claimed Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for their collaborative No. 1 hit “Unholy” at the 2023 Grammys last night, February 5 — making Petras the first-ever openly transgender woman to win the award. Petras and Smith celebrated by giving a devil-themed, risque performance of “Unholy.”

Not everybody was happy for them. More specifically, Republicans were really upset to see Smith in latex thigh-highs and Petras singing from inside a burning cage.

“This…is…evil,” Texas Senator Ted Cruz tweeted.

He was joined in his pearl-clutching by Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene: “The Grammy’s featured Sam Smith’s demonic performance and was sponsored by Pfizer. And the Satanic Church now has an abortion clinic in NM that requires its patients to perform a satanic ritual before services. American Christians need to get to work.”

And several other conservative voices chimed in:

Host Trevor Noah seemingly foresaw the outrage and poked fun at it during the CBS broadcast.

“No, Mom, it wasn’t the actual devil,” Noah said while sitting aside Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck and pretending to be on the phone with his mother after Smith and Petras’ “Unholy” performance. “No, they were just dressed as the devil, Mom. […] Yeah, you did warn me about Hollywood.”

Greene is actually lucky to have her Twitter high horse. She was temporarily locked out of her account in early January after unauthorized use of Dr. Dre’s “Still D.R.E.”

No one knows the reason behind the dispute that split Migos, but it doesn’t appear that Takeoff’s death has made Quavo and Offset ready to settle it yet. According to TMZ, it actually escalated last night at the Grammys, where the two men were involved in an altercation backstage and had to be separated when Quavo refused to allow Offset to participate in his tribute to their fallen bandmate.

Meanwhile, according to TMZ’s sources, it was not Offset who started the fight, which makes sense considering the comments Quavo and Takeoff made over the past year regarding his falling out with the group. While Quavo and Takeoff spoke about “disloyalty,” it seemed that Offset had angered them in some way, leading to their making a joint album without him. Fans have speculated that it was Offset suing their label, Quality Control Music, that set things off; others believe that there was a romantic tryst between Offset and Saweetie, who was previously dating Quavo.

Whatever the reason, many fans were disappointed that the two remaining Migos were unable to reconcile their differences for the tribute. However, it looks like the tribute provided another wedge between them, making a Migos reunion less likely than ever.

The most recent episode of HBO’s The Last of Us introduced fans to the show’s newest villain — Melanie Lynskey. We kid, we kid. Melanie Lynskey is an icon and a hilarious sh*t poster on Twitter, but the character she plays in Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin’s big-budget videogame adaptation is villainous … terrifyingly so.

In episode four’s “Please Hold My Hand,” Lynskey’s Kathleen took control of the narrative after Joel and Ellie made a poorly-timed detour in Kansas City. Though the character doesn’t exist in the game, Kathleen and her group seem to be modeled after the Hunters, a vicious, take-no-prisoners band of scavengers controlling Pittsburgh post-outbreak. The location has changed but Kathleen and company are still out for blood on the show, having overthrown FEDRA in their local QZ and currently hunting traitors who may have helped the government when they were still in power.

But there’s one name in particular that keeps popping up during the episode, a man that Kathleen is willing to do almost anything to find. Who is Henry and why is he so important to the group’s de-facto leader? We still don’t know, but the episode does hint that Henry, like the doctor Kathleen holds at gunpoint when we first meet her, is a QZ resident who aided FEDRA, ratting on his neighbors in exchange for certain perks. In fact, Kathleen seems to think it was Henry who gave FEDRA the ammo they needed to find her brother, imprison him, and beat him to death in his cell.

Lynskey told EW that it’s his death that’s fueling her current quest for vengeance.

“Imagine growing up as the sibling of Jesus and being like, ‘My brother’s the greatest human being. He’s leading the world. He’s the kindest, most decent person. I don’t think I’m that great of a person. I don’t really need to be anything in particular because I have this person by my side,’” she said. “And then somebody brutally kills him and it’s so unfair. Who are you after that?”

A war criminal? That’s how the role was pitched to the actress by the showrunners and she said fans should expect her to do even more terrible things before Henry is found.

“[Mazin] said to me, ‘I hope you’re not offended, but I would love for you to play a war criminal,’” Lynskey said of her initial call with the creator before diving into her character’s villainous transformation in episode four. “She found out that she was quite heartless and so she was able to be pretty effective in a way that maybe wasn’t because she didn’t care about people. That’s a very interesting dynamic.”

(Via EW)

Austin Butler didn’t see his family “for about three years” to prepare for his role as Elvis Presley in director Baz Luhrmann’s chaotically entertaining Elvis. “I had months where I wouldn’t talk to anybody. And when I did, the only thing I was ever thinking about was Elvis. I was speaking in his voice the whole time,” he added. Butler still hasn’t gotten rid of the accent, eight months after the movie came out. Sure, he got nominated for an Oscar — but at what cost? To sound like Uncle Jesse for the rest of his life?

Meanwhile, Matthew McConaughey probably showed up to the studio shirtless to record his dialogue for Agent Elvis, a Netflix animated series in which Presley, voiced by the Magic Mike actor, “trades in his jumpsuit for a jetpack to battle the dark forces that threaten the country – all while holding down his day job as the King of Rock and Roll,” according to the official plot synopsis. The show was created by John Eddie and Priscilla Presley, Elvis’ ex-wife (their daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, sadly passed away last month).

In the trailer for Agent Elvis, Elvis lands on the moon, beats up bad guys, and yells at a monkey. It’s not as wacky as Tom Hank’s Colonel Tom Parker voice, but it’s close.

Agent Elvis premieres on Netflix in March.

Melanie Lynskey made her The Last of Us debut in Episode 4, “Please Hold My Hand,” where she took on the role of Kathleen, the seemingly cold-blooded leader of a group of human survivors in Kansas City. As for the significance of Kathleen, not even fans of the hit video game know where her story is headed because the character was created entirely for the HBO series.

According to an interview with showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, the idea of Kathleen came from a need to give the “Hunters” in the game a more nuanced approach than simply cannon fodder for Joel and Ellie. Via ScreenRant:

You have to kill a lot of people in that video game, but for us, violence was quite serious, and we didn’t want to numb people to it. And so when enemies come, it was important for us to ask the question, “Well, why are they enemies? What do they want?” They’re not just evil people. From their point of view, this all makes sense, and it’s justifiable, and that was an interesting thing to explore.

“Everybody’s trying to survive, everybody’s trying to live life to the fullest way they can,” Druckmann said. “But often, the goals are competing with each other, and that’s where the interesting things happen and the different philosophies of how to survive or do the ends justify the means.”

While Kathleen may be an all-new addition to the series, the concept of the Hunters is not. In the game, Joel and Ellie are ambushed by the human survivors in Pittsburgh while the HBO series has switched things up by moving the action to Kansas City where the Hunters have overthrown the Federal Disaster Response Agency (FEDRA) and taken over the quarantine zone. However, the presence of Kathleen adds an interesting wrinkle to the story, so it’ll be interesting to see what transpires as whatever the heck is going on in that basement reaches a boiling point.

(Via ScreenRant)

We’re approaching the one-year anniversary of “The Slap.” Last March, Will Smith waltzed on stage during the 2022 Oscars and slapped Chris Rock after Rock made a distasteful joke about Jada Pinkett Smith. And though Rock declined to file charges, Smith is banned from attending the Oscars for the next decade.

Smith is not banned from attending the Grammys, though, and people noticed his absence on Sunday night, February 5. The 2023 Grammys featured a medley performance celebrating hip-hop’s 50th anniversary. The segment was directed and produced by Questlove, introduced by LL Cool J, and narrated by Black Thought.

DJ Jazzy Jeff was one of many legendary artists to perform, but where was Smith, aka/fka The Fresh Prince?

Questlove told Entertainment Tonight that Smith was “99.4 percent” committed to performing, “but they started shooting Bad Boys 4 this week, so he couldn’t make rehearsals.” Questlove added, “He wanted to do it.”

For those keeping score at home, Questlove apparently doesn’t hold grudges. Smith’s slap occurred as Rock was presenting the Oscar for Best Documentary. The award went to Questlove for Summer Of Soul, and Smith later apologized to Questlove for overshadowing his first Academy Award.

Smith posted a video last July apologizing not only to Questlove but to Rock, Rock’s mother, Rock’s entire family, his own family, and more.

“It really breaks my heart to have stolen and tarnished your moment,” Smith said to his “fellow nominees” in the video. “I can still see Questlove’s eyes. It happened on Questlove’s award, and you know, it’s like, ‘I’m sorry’ really isn’t sufficient.”

Watch the 50-year hip-hop anniversary tribute below.

Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul have played Walter White and Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, Better Call Saul, and now, a Super Bowl commercial. No, Big Meth didn’t spend $7 million to promote the good side effects of the deadly drug. Instead, the Vince Gilligan-directed ad is for PopCorners, which comes in six signature flavors. “Seven! You make seven!” Tuco (Raymond Cruz) yells at Walt and Jesse in the commercial. “We’re gonna eat a lot of snacks together.”

You can watch it above, and again during the Super Bowl on February 12th.

“It was also very secretive, Cranston told Entertainment Weekly about filming the commercial. “NDAs were signed. We did our wardrobe calls at our own houses, so we didn’t have to be in public. Then we had one day in a studio, and it was very closed down, very private, very secret — and then out in the middle of the desert for the second day… I don’t think there were too many leaks in our enterprise there.”

As for whether Cranston thinks this is the final time he and Paul will play their Breaking Bad characters, he said, “So we’ve stopped saying, ‘This is the last time we’re ever going to do this.’ Who knows? It could be. I’m not sure, but… you know, we’ll just leave it to the fates.” Maybe we’ll see Jesse give up Los Pollos Hermanos for Raising Cane’s during next year’s Super Bowl.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)